Hanging Around – Lampy (reviewed by Dave Franklin)

I receive a lot of music that is polished and produced…, over-polished and over-produced, if I’m honest, music made by artists forgetting that it is what lies underneath that studio sheen that determines if a song works or not, not the glitz and the gizmos and the glamour and the gimmicks. And Lampy fully admits that this latest song from his forthcoming EP is not yet in its final form. But why not get the song out there anyway?

“Hanging Around” is one of those singer-songwriter, bedroom acoustic pop songs that have a charm all of their own, a reminder that you can do so much on even the slimmest of budgets. It is raw, unpolished (naturally), and sparse, with the dynamic ebb and flow coming from the scaling up and down of additional guitar tracks, one of which moves into the mandolin’s sonic territory. Interesting.

Whilst it is lyrically both reflective and slightly melancholic as it muses on a parting of ways, of a relationship that is more about lowest common denominators than it is vibrant highs (and we’ve all been there), there is a truth and honesty, reality and relatability found within it.

And that goes for the music as much as the lyrics that it carries. This is the sound of real people expressing real life through real music. Sure, it is raw and rough around the edges…but isn’t life also like that? Well, mine is!